If reading the Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chambon had you running for the Yiddish dictionary or pulling out clumps of hair, this is the page for you! Over eighty not so usual words have been identified and arranged in alphabetical order for your reading pleasure.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

The Yiddish Policemen's Union Glossary

Well, well, well! So you, too, have been brought to this while struggling through 'The Yiddish Policemen's Union' by Michael Chabon.

The struggle was for the meaning of the many Yiddish words that peppered this off-beat novel. Like pepper which adds a touch of flavour when used judiciously in a dish, too much Yiddish, like too much pepper simply gets up one's nose, shofar-like or not.

Sometimes while reading a novel I might add a few words to my index book of an ever expanding vocabulary, on occasion there may be ten or so. But while reading this amusing detective story I amassed over 80 words that I either had never seen before in my life, or wanted clarification on.

For example. While I know what a cow is, and know a heifer is also a hoofed cow-ish animal, I really had to know what the difference is. You're right- I never got within a bull's roar of a farm as a kid.

Nit-picking, I know, but after a while it was driving me crazy. Even when the context more or less defined the word, I had to go back through the novel and make sure I had it right.

The yiddish dictionary was no match for this challenge and browsing on the internet was not quite up to the task either. As you can see from the list, there are still a few that have slipped through the net (ahem!) and if anyone out there can fill in the gaps or correct my definitions, then by all means have your two sheckels worth.

AldehydeFromalcohol dehydrogenated

Alefbeys Alphabet

ApocryphaThose having been hidden away

Apostasy The formal renunciation or abandonment of one’s religion

Autonomic Part of the peripheral nervous system that acts as a control, maintaining homoeostatis

Aurochs Type of cattle

Bessarabian fish eye ? Anyone else able to enlighten us here?

Biks Bull

Boundary maven Expert or enthusiast

CafardBlues or depression

CaissonA watertight structure used for repairs to piers, boats etc

Calliope A musical instrument fitted with steam whistles, played from a keyboard

CaravelSmall, light sailing ships

Curare Skeletal-muscle–relaxant drug belonging to the alkaloid family of organic compounds

DybbukA malicious spirit of a dead person

Emes Truth, correct

EntropyInevitable and steady deterioration of a system or society

EruvPublic domain transformed in to a private domain

ExegesisInterpretation and understanding of a text on the basis of the text itself

FairingsAn auxiliary structure or the external surface of a vehicle, such as an aircraft, that serves to reduce drag; the workings?

ForshpielSmall reception

Four-corner a 'four corner' is a tallis katan (Hebrew), a small fringed garment that observant Jewish men wear under their shirts. Often the fringes are visible. Thanks for that D.M.K

FreylekhsUp-tempo klezma music, cheerful

FurzeGorse bush

GabayStatus name from Hebrew gabay ‘warden’, denoting a trustee or warden of a Jewish public institution, especially a synagogue, or a manager of the affairs of a Hasidic rabbi.

GanefThief, scoundrel, or rascal

Heifer A young cow, especially one that has not yet given birth to a calf

Kaynahora Something said to ward off the evil eye

KibitzerTo look on and offer unwanted, usually meddlesome advice to others. Kibitzers

LaminariaAn instrument used to dilate cervix

Latke A pancake made of grated potato, also slang for a uniformed cop because their hats are shaped like a latke

Luftmenschan intellectual

MacherAn ambitious person; a schemer with many plans

MentumPart of the chin

MikvahRitual bath for purification

MomzerBastard

Mukluks Moccasins or winter boots made of reindeer skin or sealskin

Muskeg Wetland or bog

Noz Yiddish for nose, but here means a cop

PapirosCigarette

Patzer I gather that is actually chess slang! I didn’t know there was such a thing. It’s also Yiddish for “blunderer” and used to mean “poor player.”

Pilpil

Pisher Child, humorous (“little pisser”)

Rappelling To slide down a rope

RacninationThe process of reasoning, deducing

Sarmali Are we talking about a Turkish recipe here?

SatoriEnlightenment

Schlemiel Inept bungler, someone who is easily victimized

Schlosser mechanic or hit-man?

Schochet One who slaughters according to ritual

Senescence The study of the biological changes related to aging

Sententious Given to pompous moralizing.

Shammes A deacon in a synagogue

Shaydl A shadyl is a wig worn by an religious Jewish woman to keep men other than her husband from seeing her own hair.Sheygets is a non-Jewish boy.

ShivA razor, knife or other sharp implement of weapon

Shkotz A naughty boy

Shofar The ram's horn blown on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur; Also the brand name of the mobile phones the characters use

Sholem Peace/harmony (in the US they carry ‘a piece’ meaning a pistol.

Shomer Guards or to guard

Shtarker A strongarm, or one who

Shtekeleh Sounds good, but I can't find a recipe for this doughnut!

ShtetlSmall town or village

Shtinkers Informants

Shvitz To sweat, steambath

Sukkoh A temporary outdoor dwelling

Susurration A rustling, whispering, or murmur

Tefilin the ritual object used for prayer with the leather straps that Mendel uses to 'tie off' in support of his drug habit. (again, DMK)

Tekia A blast made on the shofar

Tohubohu Chaos; confusion

TzaddikThe Rightous One

Tzimmes A casserole flavoured with cinnamon and sweetened with honey

Yahrzeit Anniversary of a death, prayer and candles

My advice is to print out the list and keep it close by when reading this novel. It could save you many trips to the dictionary or computer!

24 comments:

The list is a great help!As I understand it "eruv" is also the area in which activities such as travelling, carrying things etc. is permitted on the Jewish sabbath- strictly speaking, this should be the home, buthis area is often artificially extended . Hence the importance of the boundary maven, who keeps a record of all these areasand thus provides sanction for what can and can't be done on the Sabbath without breaking Jewish law.I'm loving the book. Keep up the good work.

Just rereading the YPU and found your list while trying to figure out why he calls a cigarette a 'papiros.' Nicely done!

By the way, a 'four corner' is a tallis katan (Hebrew), a small fringed garment that observant Jewish men wear under their shirts. Often the fringes are visible. You may also want to include 'Tefilin' the ritual object used for prayer with the leather straps that Mendel uses to 'tie off' in support of his drug habit.

A "Luftmench" is NOT "an intellectual", altho he could be. Literally "air-man", a man who lives on air, it designates someone who has to live by his wits--not his intellect, but his cunning--and the connotation of the word is that he doesn't do it very well.

Shammes in this book is akin to seamus/shamus, slang for a (private) detective. Maybe just as 'sholem' is yid for 'peace', which sounds like 'piece', slang for firearm. It's like rhyming slang, maybe.As for shtekeleh, maybe that's a Filipino word.

Bessarabia is a historical region corresponding to Moldavia. Fish Eye is a clever reference to the "stink eye" or "evil eye" of Eastern Europe with a possible sideways glance (like a fish) towards Jewish dietary preferences for white fish salads and such. In total, the "Bessarabian fish eye" is just a neologism implying a long gaze by a Russian Jew expressing suspicion and disapproval.

Thanks ever so much for clarifying pilpul for me. Since writing the blog I have also found this article to be very interesting:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-shasha/what-is-pilpul-and-why-on_b_507522.html

For me, "pilpul" was part and parcel of the Rabbi Small books by Harry Kemelman (beginning with Friday the Rabbi Slept Late). That hair-splitting logic was at the root of every mystery, at one point or another.

Kawika- you want for me to remove those non-Yiddish words? Or to say, "Here are some words I had to look up, found out their exact meaning and wrote them down for my own benefit- and perhaps for anyone else who may be stumbling along." I read the book in the days before smartphones and dictionary apps. Maybe the blog has outlived its usefulness.. but it did give me the pleasure of writing down one the lovely words from the English language 'susurration'.